Expansion Core
The Stability Update (Beta 0.3.6)
Minor Features:
- Changed how Enemy Event Spawns are calculated: In the past, all events randomly picked enemies based on the biome and mutation. This worked kind of well, but it could lead to situations where the waves are either way too easy or way too hard. Now, there should be a consistent split between high evolution versus low evolution enemies for each wave.
- Added in more things that change based on the difficulty setting, mainly Event Spawns.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed many issues related to some reworks of the code base. Can't go into too many details, but things got a bit messy. It should be fine now though.
- Fixed many small, annoying UI bugs and inconsistencies.
- Added in more failsafe cases for event spawns. This should hopefully make it so that you can never get into the "1 Enemy Remaining" situation.
- Made it so that enemies can't spawn naturally during events, as well as increasing the natural despawn rate. This will hopefully alleviate the issue where if too many enemies spawned, new enemies would have broken AI.
The High Tier Update (Beta 0.3.5)
Major Features:
- Compressing and Complex Crafting: These are two new methods of processing resources. Like blasting and refining, these machines require a fuel source and groups of items to be processed. The recipes, however, require many more resources, so I suggest getting some Axe bots and Miners. Along with the new ways to craft come a bunch of new items (currently like 8 I think?)
Minor Features:
- New Ally; High Tier Research Bot: A whole new tier of researchers to unlock the new recipes. As a bonus, this one has some surprisingly high damage and health stats!
- New Ally; Mobile Refinery: This tier also unlocks a mobile version of the refinery. Finally, you can have a way to process oil on the go!
- New Ally; Medium Blast Furnace Bot: Going along the line of the refinery, this blast furnace is also on the go. As a note, both of the mobile versions of these crafting stations use less fuel than their stationary counterparts.
- New Ally; Medium Woodcutter Bot: Need lots of logs? Well this bot has you covered. It can level an entire forest and still have some room to spare!
- New Ally; Emberforge Brawler: This bot is an upgraded version of the Iron Grappler. It has the same chassis, but is made of the new materials and has heated fists for some extra damage.
- New Item; Iron Armor: Exactly like the copper armor, but more expensive and more health. Not much else to say.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a few issues with how enemies were spawning and getting cached, so there should be more enemies allowed in the game at once.
- Put in a new fix for Hardshells not properly moving towards Miners when spawned.
- Make it so that if an enemy is stuck during an event, they are destroyed after 30 seconds. This should prevent events being impossible if an enemy decides to spawn on top of a building or underground.
The Transfer Bot Update (Beta 0.3.4)
Major Features:
- Transfer Bots; These bots come built into the player and are used to transfer items. To access them, you need to craft a Transfer Controller. Once you have that, you can right click with it equipped to access the filters, or left click on a storage you want to transfer FROM, then click on the storage you want to transfer TO. Every time you upgrade your Mobile Base, you will gain one more transfer bot, for a current max of 3.
- Difficulty Options; A requested feature has been added. Simply go into the options menu under Gameplay and you'll find a new difficulty setting. Currently it affects the Storm aggro, as well as some of the enemies' stats.
Minor Features:
- New Enemy; Frostclaw: A large bear-like creature covered in shards of ice. When encountered, the Frostclaw will shake some of it's ice off, spawning Chillshards. The Frostclaw comes in several varieties, including the Berserker, who trades off spawning Chillshards for increased damage, and the Overcharged Frostclaw, which is the current most powerful natural spawning enemy.
- New Enemy; Chillshard: These sentient shards of ice are capable of piercing enemies, as well as throwing shards of ice at random nearby targets. The Overcharged version of this enemy is dangerous due to the high amount of shards it throws out at it's targets.
- Added a large mining station structure to the world. It's currently just a landmark, but in the future, I may return to it and add some functionality.
- Balance changes; Increased all miner's search range and inventory space. Updated enemy drop tables. Updated Upgrade drops to match the enemy types better.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a major issue with how Trade Pod spawn rates were calculated. There should now be much less enemy spawns in areas that shouldn't have many (i.e. the Oil Fields).
- Fixed an issue that was causing Hardshells that were spawned as a result of Mining to not move towards the Miner.
- Fixed an issue where spawned event enemies occasionally would forget what their target was.
- Fixed an issue where storages wouldn't be uniquely named, which broke transferring.
The Research and Development Update (Beta 0.3.3)
Major Features:
- Beacon Connection: Beacons now have two different states that the player can choose in the Beacon menu after a HUB has been spawned. Connecting to the Chronos allows you to purchase humanity-specific blueprints that are focused on creating the latest technology. Corrupting a beacon allows you to get AI-created bio-machines that use a lot of the natural resources that you can find in the world. Corrupting a beacon also corrupts the nearby environment, causing harder enemies to spawn for a while.
Minor Features:
- New Ally; Emberblade: The Emberblade is a sword-wielding bot that is focused on quick movement and high damage. It can be empowered with Energy to deal extra damage.
- New Ally; High Capacity Axe Bot: An upgraded version of the current Axe Bot. It can carry twice as many items and has slightly stats overall.
- New Ally; Ripper Drone: This ally focuses on high move speed and decent damage. The main draw is the relatively low cost for the damage output.
- New Ally; Carapace Crusher: Focused on high defense, this slow moving ally can outlast most enemies while dealing pretty decent damage for the cost.
- New Ally; Frostclad Repair Drone: The current highest tier ally. This one focuses on healing, much like the current repair bot, but has one major upside. The Frostclad can repair while moving! It also has a larger power pool as well as a higher healing rate.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed an issue causing allies to not rubberband to the player as fast as they should. Allies will still be left in the dust if you move too fast, but not as badly as before!
- Fixed beacons not increasing nearby corruption on HUB spawns.
- Fixed enemy spawn health. No more half-health Spitters!
If you've read to the end of this, then you've actually paid attention. I'll tell you something super secret...
I actually started implementing logistics... It's still not finished, so use it at your own risk!
The keybinds for it are: [ and ] for testing. Press ] to open up the filters menu. Here you can add in items to filter (it uses item IDs, so good luck finding out which item is which). If the filter's empty, it will just be all items.
Then you can press [ while looking at a storage that you want to transfer items from, then look at a different storage and press [ again. This will link the two storages and start transferring items!
Again, this is an Experimental Feature... so... sorry if it breaks stuff.
The Frozen Biome and Balance Update (Beta 0.3.1)
Major Features:
- Added in several new Beacons around the map. The new ones should be much more difficult than the current ones for a better challenge during the mid-end game.
- Added the Shardslinger enemy type to the Frost Biome to round out enemy types for that biome.
- Added the Graveyard Stalker and Corrupt Drone enemy types. They're currently in the WIP zone, but should be fully functional if you want to look for them.
- After much back and forth, I've decided to increase the day length because it was just too short for many players.
- Added some major quality of life features. You can now see your currently placed blueprint in the Wrist Menu (Hold right click). You can now also see enemies and resources health when looking at them. I've tested with this for a while and I think it's a good feature to have. Depending on the feedback I get, I may make the health bar a toggle in the menu.
Minor Features:
- Made it so that the nearby enemy spawns increase their evolution values when a Beacon is completed, which should add in some dynamic difficulty adjustments.
- Added in an Frostbreath Ice Stalker variant.
- Added a Laser Eye Stilt Walker variant.
- Added Overcharged and Biter Bulb Lizard variants.
- Added more custom encounters with the new enemy types.
- Added in Spruce trees for a bit of variety in the Frozen biome.
- Updated all of the drop tables for enemies, so they should drop more specific items for the biome that they occupy.
- Made it so that the Mobile Base heals the player at twice the rate of how much it heals Allies. This is to hopefully help with the early gameplay loop.
- To help with the Storms being too aggressive, I've made them have a new aggro status that makes them hold their current position for a set period of time. This should ideally make the Storms more predictable and avoidable without making them too non-threatening.
- Updated the night sky skybox to look nicer and subtly rotate. There's still more work to be done on it, but I think it looks nicer than the static sky.
- Made Mother Beetle spawns match their spawner's color, just for fun.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed some major issues with the Quest log not displaying properly and being weird when hiding and showing quests.
- Fixed a minor issue with how Cores get saved and loaded.
- Fixed a major issue that was causing enemy spawns to not save/load their evolution values.
- Fixed a bug with Bulb Lizard projectiles not always going the right direction.
- Fixed a lot of UI dropdowns to use the right colors.
The NPC Update (Beta 0.3.0)
Major Features:
- NPCs: That's right, I finally made a dialogue system! For now, there's only one and a half NPCs that have dialogue trees, sweet lore and a quest so far. Future updates will obviously add more NPCs and quests to go along with them.
- Updated Factory: I've updated the look and Loot of the Factory. The boss fight has also been tuned to be harder and you now receive a special blueprint from defeating the boss! I won't spoil it here though!
- Added in 3 new enemy types, the Ice Stalker, Stilt Walker and Bulb Lizard.
- Updated to UE5. (This seems like it wouldn't have taken too much time, but trust me... it did).
- Added a new HUB type, the Supply HUB. This one shoots lasers and is cool.
- Added in Oil and Refined Oil item types.
- Added many refinery and smelting recipes for the new items types.
Minor Features:
- Money transfers now have an animation that I really enjoy.
- Enemy Spider Healer Bots now actually heal! They heal their nearest ally and are now more of a priority target.
- Added boss fight music to the boss fight.
- Corrupt miners now have an AOE attack when using their pickaxe to attack.
- Added 3 unique Loot containers for industrial areas that have different loot tables.
- Added new sounds for having low integrity, low health, death, and repair.
- Added various UI for events (countdown, updated wave display, etc.) to make them more clear.
- Added a bunch of doodads around the industrial locations to add more variety.
- Worked on making Quests more reliable, but there's still some work to be done.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a major bug that caused pryable doors and unique blueprints/enemies to respawn occasionally.
- Fixed some sounds for repairing and low integrity.
- Fixed the music player to not repeat songs too quickly.
- Fixed a major bug causing the player to be unable to create or play saves.
- Fixed a couple bugs relating to event-spawned enemies not behaving properly.
Another Update for Minor Issues
Thanks for any of you who continue to support this game. I know we don't have the biggest player base, but even if there's just one or two people who enjoy what I make, I'm satisfied!
Small Update to Fix Saves
Also, since I had to sort of rush to get this fix out, I also packed in a couple changes that were meant to go out in a later build!
There's a new enemy, the Bulb Lizard, that lives in the Scorched Desert. It's another spitter-type enemy that I plan to make an evolved version down the line that does some cool AOE type moves. Also, I UPDATED TO UNREAL ENGINE 5! What does this mean for the game? I mean... not much yet. Probably some performance improvements and some stability, but also likely some bugs that I have yet to find. In the coming weeks, expect some more random patches as I fix various things that I broke during the update.
Specialty Resources and the Ice Biome
I've also added in a new HUB structure that will act as a defensive turret for the time being. In the future this new HUB will have some other powers, but for now it's just a cool building with three floating turrets that kill nearby enemies.
The update logs from here on will likely be in this loose format because of my current time constraints. I've been crazy busy with work and life, so I haven't had much time to focus on development. Hopefully in the coming year I'll be able to make some more time. Fingers crossed!
Expansion Core Beta Update! (Beta 0.2.12 Patch Notes)
Major Features:
- Quest Rework! As said above, I completely deleted the old quest system in favor of a new, more streamlined version. You can now open up the quest log (default "L") to show quest descriptions and hide specific quests. The tutorial and almost all of the additional quest dialogue has been updated to take up less screen space. There's some nice lore/descriptions for those who want it in the quest log though. Overall I believe the new system will be more resilient and break less often, but only open testing will tell.
- Oil Field Biome Update! The oil fields have been given a minor visual update as well as two new enemy variants based on the beetle and spitter enemy types. Along with this, I've added a new beacon between the Factory and the Scorched Desert. It's another abandoned oil yard that appears to have once been hooked up to the Factory to supply it with resources.
- Storage Bot Rebalance! Storage bots have been updated to have more storage space overall! This, in tandem with the recipe rebalance will put more emphasis on inventory management and having more mobile gameplay.
- Updated Drops! Enemy drop tables have been updated. Many now drop energy items at a higher rate, as well as the new Refined Energy. Overall, gaining specific items should be a little easier based on which enemies you are hunting.
- Recipe Balancing! There has been a major rework to the costs for building chassis, modules and structures. For the most part, most recipes have new or more costly recipes to better match the availability of each resource. Many recipes now also require Refined Energy (a new drop that's been added to many enemy types). The intent is to put more of an emphasis on gathering the resources in one area and moving to another to build large blueprints. It also puts more emphasis on building bots that either help gather or help carry the newly required bulk resources. The recipes are still subject to change, but this change pushes the game more toward my intended vision.
Minor Features:
- Storms now are both less aggressive overall, but also less predictable at night.
- HUBs now project a visible protection sphere to show the player their protection influence.
- Whenever you gain currency, the amount will now pop up in the bottom right above the item gained text.
- The Quick Heal prompt now only shows when a bot can be repaired and the player has the required resources to do the repair.
- Added a "bag full" sound as well as an "item transferred" sound.
- Added sounds for when you leave/enter an integrity field.
- Added sounds for placing and cancelling blueprints.
- Added several new data logs throughout the world for the player to find.
- Added some new visual fog to the Storms to add to their overall look.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a trade exploit that allowed the user to double their profit under certain circumstances.
- Quick healing should now be more consistent for allies (there was an issue with their hitboxes that has been resolved).
- Fixed an enemy spawning issue where enemies would spawn inside of the ground during events. Their locations are now properly randomized.
- Quick healing should now be possible for dead allies.
- Event enemy drops have been lowered a little bit more to prevent infinite trading.
- Unique enemies now properly spawn when starting a new game.
- Fixed an exploit where you could bypass the ally build limit.
- Fixed an issue that was causing unique blueprints to be buildable for free.
- Fixed an issue where Dave couldn't leave the Firewatch station.
Once again, thank you to everyone on the Discord for submitting bug reports and feature suggestions. They really are one of the main reasons I keep working as hard as I do as a solo developer. Updates might slow down as the holidays come up, but I'll probably set aside a couple days during vacation to put something together. The next update might be 0.3.0, but I might have to sneak in a 0.2.13 if anything is broken with this version.
Thanks again!
- Jason (Candlebird)